Tag Archives: Congo

Suspected rebels have killed civilians and damaged a major hydropower plant under construction in Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the park operator said on Wednesday. Tuesday’s attack, which included the use of artillery, came from the direction of positions held by the M23 rebel group, …

Trapped in conflicts, the children of West and Central Africa are the most recruited by armed groups in the world and also have the highest number of victims of sexual violence, says a report released Tuesday by the United Nations Children’s Fund. For five years the region has seen increased …

China wrapped up the country’s first multinational peacekeeping exercise on Wednesday, demonstrating the extent of its military might on a huge training ground ringed by mountains. China’s defense spending is the second-largest in the world after the US, and tensions have dramatically increased between rival powers as Beijing has poured …

Militants have hacked to death at least 30 people in a new massacre in the restive northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Locals and sources from the United Nations (UN) said on Monday that the militants armed with machetes, sticks and clubs had raided an area of Ituri …

Twelve people died and 4,400 fell sick in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo following a tailings leak from the Catoca diamond mine in Angola in July, Congo’s environment minister said on Thursday. Following a visit to Kasai province, where the Tshikapa river turned red and many fish died, environment …

Around 80 people are feared missing in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after armed rebels ambushed a convoy on Wednesday and set fire to 16 vehicles, a local parliamentarian said. Jean-Paul Ngahangondi, a member of the Ituri province’s parliament, blamed the assault on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an …

Congo’s Senate on Tuesday rejected a request by prosecutors to lift former Prime Minister Matata Ponyo Mapon’s immunity so they could indict him for his role in a failed agriculture project in which investigators say $200 million disappeared. Prosecutors hoped to charge Matata, who served as Democratic Republic of Congo’s …

Hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa are “overwhelmed” by a rise in COVID-19 infections, President Felix Tshisekedi said on Saturday, as the country was hit by a third wave of the disease. Like many African countries, Congo has officially registered relatively few cases. But the virus has …

At least 55 people were killed overnight in two attacks on villages in eastern Congo, the United Nations said on Monday, in potentially the worst night of violence the area has seen in at least four years. The army and a local civil rights group blamed the Allied Democratic Forces …

A female peacekeeper from Malawi was killed in an attack by an Islamist militia in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province on Monday morning, the U.N. and the Malawian government said. A local civil rights group said separately that fighters with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist armed group with …

More than 1,300 people have been killed in the first half of 2020 by armed groups in DR Congo, three times more than in the same period in 2019, according to a report published by the United Nations. Between January and June 2020, fighters of all armed groups were responsible …

The Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo’s northwest is growing, according to health officials, sounding the alarm weeks after the country officially declared an end to a separate Ebola epidemic which claimed over 2,000 lives. There have been 54 confirmed cases since June 1 in Mbandaka, a transport hub in …

Protests in DRC capital Kinshasa turned violent, reportedly leaving at least 3 people dead as demonstrators objected to the planned appointment of a new Electoral Commission chairperson

More than one million people have been forced to flee their homes in the violence-ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since the start of the year, the UN said Tuesday. The UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, voiced alarm at an increasing number of attacks by armed groups …

The International Criminal Court passed its highest ever sentence, sending a Congolese warlord known as “The Terminator” to prison for 30 years for crimes including murder, rape, and sexual slavery. Bosco Ntaganda was found guilty in July of 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role …

Up to 50 people were killed when a cargo train derailed in Congo’s southeastern province of Tanganyika in the early hours of Thursday, government officials said, though reports on casualties differed widely. The Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Steve Mbikayi, said the derailment happened around 3 a.m. local time (0100 GMT), …

Singapore said on Tuesday it had seized 8.8 tonnes of elephant ivory, a record haul by authorities in the city-state, which conservation groups say is a transit point for the illegal wildlife trade. The elephant ivory, estimated to be worth $12.9 million, came from nearly 300 African elephants and was …

At least 30 people have died and another 200 are missing after a boat sank on a lake in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to local authorities. Simon Mboo Wemba, the mayor of Inongo, told reporters on Sunday that many of those on the boat were teachers. “So …

Over 1,000 people have died in an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – the second deadliest in history. With efforts to bring it under control are hampered by civil war and mistrust, health minister Oly Ilunga said 1,008 lives have been claimed by the virus, which …

Around 12 million hectares of forest in the world’s tropical regions were lost in 2018, equivalent to 30 football fields per minute. While this represents a decline in 2016 and 2017, it is still the fourth highest rate of loss since records began in 2001. Of particular concern is the …